Chapter 20
It was blustery and dark, a cold wind blowing in gusts across the empty parking lot of Poughkeepsie Plumbing Supply.
A chain-link fence surrounded the property, train tracks running between the warehouse and the Hudson River some forty feet away.
The fence was buckled in places, wood pallets stacked up behind the building like discarded gift boxes on Christmas morning.
A small addition stuck out from the side of the main building like a metal-roofed shanty.
Sloan used his banged-up NVGs to scope out the telephone poles and tall buildings around the property, Joanne on his heels.
“Are you sure we shouldn’t wait until HERO Force gets here tomorrow?” she asked.
“I just want to check it out. See if we can get the lay of the land while no one’s around.”
“What exactly are we looking for?”
“Security cameras, for starters. Doesn’t look like they have any.”
“I’d think they would have put their money into repaving this parking lot before they’d do anything high-tech, don’t you?”
He moved toward a particularly badly buckled section of fencing farthest away from the light. “Let’s get in there and take a look around.” He stepped aside for her to go first. “You remember how to climb a fence?”
“It’s four feet tall, Sloan. I think I can manage.”
A light breeze carried the scent of fried food from a restaurant nearby, and he moaned. “You know what I love? Fried dough with powdered sugar. Food of the gods.”
She took one big step up the fence, then threw her leg over the top. “Do you ever stop thinking about food?”
“No.” He made it over the fence in one practiced movement. “Oh, with honey on top. Hell yeah. I gotta make me some of that when I get home.” He moved toward the door to the shanty, which, upon closer inspection, appeared to be an office.
“What if there’s an alarm?”
“Then we run very, very fast. Come on.” He stopped at the door, finding it locked, and unzipped his rucksack.
“What are you looking for?”
“Lock-picking tools.”
“You just carry those around?”
“Only when I’m going to be picking locks.” It was a complicated mechanism, but well within his skill. He eyed Joanne as he worked. “What were you and my mom talking about back at the cabin?”
“Nothing.”
“You can just say you don’t want to tell me.”
“Fine. I don’t want to tell you.”
“Hmm. Must have been good.”
She didn’t answer.
Really must have been good.
He’d been walking by the door and heard his name, barely resisting the urge to stop and listen. He would have paid money to be a fly on the wall for that conversation. Jo and his mom had always had a good relationship, which was far easier to accept when he and Jo had a good one of their own.
The lock clicked. “Got it. Come on.”
He shined the light on the room around them, illuminating a desk, several filing cabinets, and two tables full of plumbing parts. He felt Jo walking behind him in the darkness, hating how aware he was of her presence.
Did she feel it, too? This thread that joined them like an electrical wire, its current surging?
It was worse now that her kids were gone, even worse still as his adrenaline surged, anticipating a possible showdown tomorrow.
He was drawn to that current, desperate to touch it, no matter that he would be burned.
And he would be burned—of that, he was certain. If not by the intensity of their connection, then by the opening of that same old wound from when she left.
The thought brought him up short. He’d been so damn angry when she married Regan that anger was his predominant emotion. But there had been a wound beyond his temper, a hurt he realized now he’d never been able to fix.
“You check the filing cabinet. I’ll check the desk,” he said, pulling a second flashlight from his pack and handing it to her. A train whistle sounded in the distance, a low vibration growing as the locomotive got closer.
Most of the drawers were full of office supplies, but one had a checkbook. He flipped through the duplicate copies, finding nothing unexpected for a plumbing supply company. He threw it back in the drawer.
“I found bank account statements,” said Jo. “A bunch of them.”
“How much money?”
“A lot more than you’d need to fix that parking lot and install some cameras. Seven figures.”
Suddenly, bright light streamed in from windows on either side of the room. “Shit. Give me those.” He took the files from her hand and stuffed them into his pack.
“What do we do?”
“Come. Follow me.” He crouched down low and opened the door, the distant barking of a dog immediately catching his attention. He hadn’t heard a dog the whole time they’d been on the property. The paths that had been dark were now lit by bright sodium lights.
Shit.
Turning away, he raced for the fence. That dog definitely seemed to be getting closer. They’d obviously tripped some kind of alarm or had been otherwise discovered. He reached the fence, but here thick brush grew through it and over it, making it difficult to scale.
The train whistle blew again and the train passed by, the rumbling drowning out all other sounds, though he knew the animal was there.
He cursed into the din, running along the back of the building toward a small clearing in the brush, looking over his shoulder to be sure Joanne was there.
She was, but behind her, the shape of the charging dog could be seen heading straight toward them.
He ran as fast as he could, reaching the clearing and hopping the fence with his good arm, then turned to help Joanne over it as well. She had one foot up high in the chain links when the dog caught up to her, barking wildly and attaching to her other foot.
He saw the fear in her eyes and watched her mouth form his name, but he couldn’t hear her scream over the sound of the train.
He was already reaching for her, desperate to pull her over the fence, but his prosthetic arm couldn’t lift her weight.
He climbed onto the fence, bending over it to get a better grip around her body with his good arm, and heaved her over the top.
They landed hard, him on his back and her on top of him, and scrambled to their feet as the train finally passed the warehouse and the sound waned.
Sloan’s prosthesis had been pulled off his body and was hanging from its strap. Without it, his rucksack shifted awkwardly from his other shoulder. “Come on!” he demanded, forcing her into action.
“Your arm!”
“It’s fine. Go!”
The sound of running footsteps followed them from inside as they raced along the fence back to the car. Sloan threw his prosthesis in the back and peeled away from the curb, taking off down the street.